This isn't just an aesthetic thing, or an organisational thing (ooh, all my games are there!), but there IS a benefit to having it registered in steam.

Whenever I rollback the state of my PC to a backup 'ghost' image, all my games are not installed. I don't have to hunt for CDs for the steam games - steam knows what games I own, and will download and install them for me automatically. HL2 and RDKF will automatically install themselves again, and I don't have to do anything, PLUS they'll be the latest versions and I won't have to mess around.

With Darwinia, I have to go into my storage and find the CD, then install it, then hunt for patches and so on. Not an ordeal I know, but steam users don't have to do it and I want that ability.

As I mentioned before, aside from the non-uniqueness of Darwinia boxes, Valve don't get any money for non-Steam purchases, so why would they allow IV to let people use their services for no financial gain?

This isn't just an aesthetic thing, or an organisational thing (ooh, all my games are there!), but there IS a benefit to having it registered in steam.

Whenever I rollback the state of my PC to a backup 'ghost' image, all my games are not installed. I don't have to hunt for CDs for the steam games - steam knows what games I own, and will download and install them for me automatically. HL2 and RDKF will automatically install themselves again, and I don't have to do anything, PLUS they'll be the latest versions and I won't have to mess around.

With Darwinia, I have to go into my storage and find the CD, then install it, then hunt for patches and so on. Not an ordeal I know, but steam users don't have to do it and I want that ability.

Shame.

It is what it is. Since Darwinia was not originally designed to require a CD-key, it is not possible to 'add' your CD version to Steam.

Nor would Valve/Steam want this, if you thought about it for half a second - why would Valve want to pay for the bandwidth necessary to upload the game to someone that didn't buy the game through them? Valve makes no money from sales outside of Steam, so even if Darwinia was designed with a CD-Key system from the get-go, I'd bet my C-3PO coffee cup that you still wouldn't be allowed to add your boxed version of Darwinia to Steam.

You can add store-bought CD-Keys from old versions of Half-Life, Blue Shift, and Half-Life 2 etc. to your Steam account because, guess what? They're still Valve games, and they still made money off the sales, whether or not you bought them through Steam or at your local game shop.

Edit: if I wasn't such a slow typist, I wouldn't be looking fairly redundant right now. Damn you Dave2!! *shakes fist*

sure, i'm not trying to argue that valve owe me the right to have the steam version, i'm just pointing out that there IS something steam purchasers have that i'm missing out on. i'll make do with the cd version, i'd just really like to be able to have it in my steam list too.

and for the record, i'm a huge fan of steam! i think it's the future, and sod the lot of yer who moan about it

I hate to say it, but just because you bought the retail Darwinia doesn't mean Valve owes you anything. If you're really bent on reinstalling your system for WHATEVER reason, then it's a simple matter of using WinRAR to compress your Darwinia folder, back that up, then when you're reinstalling all of your crap, just install Darwinia, then overwrite with your archive. I'm sure you have more than just Steam on your computer, so you'll be reinstalling multiple applications anyway.

xbskid wrote:...then when you're reinstalling all of your crap, just install Darwinia, then overwrite with your archive...

Not even that's really necessary. Just reinstall Windows, and leave Darwinia where it is - it'll still play once you're done. If you're formatting the drive, move the Darwinia directory to another partition, then move it back when you're done. All the installer does, really, is add shortcuts to your start menu, which any trained monkey can do themselves.